1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to drinking devices and, more particularly, relates to drinking devices for quadriplegics, patients recovering from surgery or suffering from a debilitating illness, or other persons having limited or no use of their hands.
2. Description of the Related Art
For people such as quadriplegics, stroke victims, hospital patients recovering from major surgery or suffering from a debilitating illness, or anyone else having limited or no use of their hands, unassisted drinking can be a serious problem. Picking up a water glass and drinking directly from it are out of the question. Drinking out of a straw is also impossible unless an attendant holds the water glass and straw at a location permitting access to the straw by the user's mouth. This of course requires heavy dependence by the user on attendants and thus seriously damps feelings of independence. This also places some users at considerable risk of dehydration if their attendants are unavailable for periods of time exceeding several hours or more. Even assisted drinking from a straw may be impossible for users who are too weak to suck on the straw. A need has therefore been established for a drinking device which permits unassisted access to fluids by even highly incapacitated users.
Several devices have heretofore been proposed to meet this need, but all such devices have exhibited marked drawbacks and disadvantages. For instance, a device is proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,699,319 to Green which includes a jug for storing water or another fluid, and a tubing assembly including (1) a rigid tube having an inlet positioned in the jug and an outlet extending above and forwardly from the jug, and (2) a flexible straw extending forwardly from the outlet of the tube for access by the mouth of the user. Only a relatively short portion of the tubing assembly is flexible, and unassisted access to the straw is accordingly limited. Moreover, the fluid must be drawn through the tube and straw under suction provided by the user, an action which extremely weak users may not be capable of performing. In addition, cleaning of the tubing assembly is hindered by the fact that the assembly is semi-permanently mounted on the jug and its surrounding support structure, making it difficult or impossible to effectively flush the tubing assembly. This in turn tends to result in unsanitary operating conditions.
Another drinking device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,057,077 to Turner et al. and includes a fluid filled bag, a mouthpiece, and a flexible tube supplying liquid from the bag to the mouthpiece and having a valve disposed therein for permitting the supply of fluid to the tube from the bag in discrete boluses. A nipple extends through the mouthpiece for access by the user, and the mouthpiece is designed for semipermanent positioning on the user's face with the nipple inserted in the user's mouth. Use of such a device would appear to result in significant discomfort to the user. Further, since the tube supplying fluid to the mouthpiece is flexible, the mouthpiece will fall to an inaccessible position should it become dislodged from the user's mouth, and thereby preclude access to the mouthpiece. In addition, the valve is specially designed to provide distinct boluses of fluid to the user of rather limited volume. This may prove frustrating to some users. Moreover, as with the Green patent discussed above, the tubing assembly is not easily cleaned and its extended use could result in unsanitary operating conditions.